How To Create An Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Today, I want to talk about how to create a content marketing strategy in a few easy steps. If we are not creating a strategy, then we are throwing pasta at the wall and hoping that it sticks and we don’t really have a direction that we’re going with our business or our time even. So what happens is, we get frustrated, and we’re like, what the heck, I didn’t have this planned out, I am not understanding why I’m bringing in these leads, or I’m not getting the sales.

Another thing that is a stumbling block is how to create content that will convert. If you don’t have a plan and a strategy set up in advance, you’re not going to know what’s working and what’s not working. 

So, let’s dive in and go over the easy steps to help you create that plan and go over some core steps that will provide you with the framework essentials, that you can set up to be successful.

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What Is Your Goal?

First, you need to determine your goal and document them.  I’ve done it in my inner circle where we actually came up with a master content calendar. So for example, even for today’s topic, how to create content and effective content strategy, it was in my content plan. It was planned out weeks ago knowing that’s what I was going to be writing about it today. I knew how to promote it ahead of time to get the people here to be able to talk about it and  I knew the location, what the description was going to be and how to add a call to action. It was all planned out and I didn’t have to stress about it. 

Also, I knew what the goals were. Each month for me has a specific goal. It can be easy to get caught up in the technology and the systems. As well as the what and where of your content. But then, you skip over why you are putting out that piece of content. Is it something to create leads? Is it something to build relationships? Are you going to create or provide value to your audience? Do you want to help improve someone’s experience or business? No matter what the goal is, you want to make sure that it’s sustainable so that you can achieve whatever the mission is. 

Create Your Own Spin

There are tons of people out there that do Pinterest marketing. So even though my goal is to provide help with Pinterest, I want to make sure that I have my spin on it. Meaning adding in my personality in the way I teach it. I love quirky words and I have a spunky type of personality. So I want that to resonate in my content, whether it’s written or it’s video. So what’s your one thing? Do you like to make people laugh? Do you like to inform? Do you like to educate? Do you you have a serious business type of personality? Do you like to be quirky and spunky like Me? All of those things are important, but you first need to have a goal. 

Measure What’s Working

Next, measure what’s working. Go back and see is this getting traffic? Am I getting leads? Am I building relationships from this? Whatever that goal is, measure it and make sure that you’re checking out the types of actual metrics that will help you to ensure you’re reaching your goal. What I mean by that is, is take Pinterest for example. People will say, “Oh, I had 500,000 monthly viewers.”  Okay, well, how many clicks? Are you getting five? I don’t care more about the monthly viewers, then I care about the traffic on the back end. Because the purpose of Pinterest leads to sales and traffic. Not how many people are actually seeing your pin. That doesn’t matter if they’re not engaging with it. So make sure that you’re tracking and measuring the metrics that are going to help you. 

Identify Your Top Audience

Who is someone that you are going to be able to help and make sure that when you’re writing this content, you’re specific about that person? I can teach Pinterest, to eCommerce and coaches, business builders and bloggers. The list could go on. But what is one person or one audience that you would love to connect with and why? 

I have a Pinterest challenge coming up. When I set up my ads, I wanted to make sure that my content in my ads is reaching a certain type of person.

So the ad that I was working on today was to reach not the eCommerce people, but it was to reach the service-based entrepreneurs. So when I’m writing that content, I need to make sure that I’m identifying that in the actual content that I’m doing. One of my ads can be to eCommerce, but I’m going to talk to them about product sales. If I’m talking to a service-based industry owner, they’re not going to care about product sales, because they’re not selling products, some of them might, but I need to make sure that my content is addressing that specific audience. 

So who is your audience? You can also have multiple audiences, right? So I can do eCommerce and I can do service-based but the content has to be separate. Make sure that you’re not focusing on just the demographics of location, age, etc, but also their psychographics. What do they like to do? What are they engaged with? What are their passions? What are their loves? What do they like to watch on Netflix? You want to make sure that you focus on the fact that you are 100% not your audience when you’re creating your content. Get out of your own head and focus on what motivates them as well as what their needs and passions are and not yours. 

Create More Content With Less

Make sure that you create more content with less. Yes, I said it, create more content with less when it comes to content problems. Everybody thinks that the solution needs to be more content. Throw more content in their face and tell them how to do more things. But, let me just tell you, we don’t need to do content just for content sake. We don’t want to pile content on top of the content that already exists and give them this massive overload. They’re going to probably feel as though repurposed some of your content instead of curating some of your content.

Consider doing user-generated content, and then write your own or do Facebook Lives or things like that, like, to give your content new life. Make sure that you’re not overwhelming your audience by giving them too much that they can’t handle

Create A Content Calendar

Lastly, start with a content calendar. Make sure that you have a content calendar that lists out things for you to make sure you have your sales goals, your links, your offers, your follow-ups, your Facebook lives, etc.

Making sure that you’re actually taking the time to create content that’s going to convert, is important. You want your audience to see that you come up with something that they want to sign up for or be the first to receive or benefit from. 

The 3 pillars of business growth are systems, strategy, and results. Systems, for example, are MailChimp, Convert Kit or simply a pen and a piece of paper. Strategies are the specific goals for the month that you can implement to help achieve goals. Results are how you’re measuring the strategies and systems that’s been implemented.